Board Sharpens New Strategy

The ASCE Board of Direction spent a good portion of its quarterly meeting, July 28-29 in Baltimore, honing its strategic plan, a process that began in January with vision, goals, and measurables set to coalesce at the October meeting.

The Board broke into focus groups to discuss and refine six goal statements. They then ranked several potential strategies to accomplish those goals.

“I’m really happy with the input from the Board,” said Board member and Technical Region Director Jim Harris, Ph.D., P.E., NAE, F.SEI, F.ASCE, who has helped take a lead on the strategic planning process. “The wording of the goals has tightened up a lot; and the ranking gives us the information to begin a new round of clarifying and pulling together the strategies so that the Board can have one more attempt at ranking them as to what matters the most for ASCE and what matters the most for Board attention.”

Harris and his team will be condensing and organizing the Board input during the next two months in preparation for the October meeting in New Orleans, as part of the ASCE 2017 Convention. The Board will then finalize the goals and strategies into one cohesive plan used to direct both the Society and the Board’s work going forward.

The working list of goals focuses broadly on the following:

• Applying best practices

• A safe, efficient, and sustainable infrastructure

• Education and professionalism

• Valuing civil engineers’ role

• Growing membership

• Exceptional professional society

Vision Zero

The Public Policy Committee brought a long list of policy statements for Board consideration, as part of ASCE’s three-year cycle to review the public policy statements the Society uses as its guide on major technical, professional and educational issues of interest to the civil engineering community and the nation.

The Board approved revisions to more than 50 other policy statements and approved a new policy statement that supports Vision Zero, an international initiative that seeks to eliminate traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries. Vision Zero, is based on the tenets that traffic fatalities can be prevented, are unacceptable, and even one traffic-related death is too many. These tenets align with civil engineers’ commitment to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.

Budget approvals

The Program and Finance Committee made its annual report, and the Board voted to approve the Fiscal Year 2018 operating, capital, Institute, Civil Engineering Certification Inc., and ASCE Foundation budgets. The Board also approved a $5 dues increase for affiliate members, associate members, members, and Fellows.

New canon

The Board voted unanimously to adopt a new canon to the Society’s Code of Ethics that expresses a professional obligation to provide fair and equal treatment for all (see story in ASCE News).

UESI growing

The Board voted to grant full status to the Utility Engineering and Surveying Institute. UESI became ASCE’s ninth institute in July 2015, and, while operating under provisional status, has grown to nearly 3,000 members in its first two years.

“It’s growing even faster than we anticipated,” said Joseph Peter Castronovo, P.E., F.ASCE, UESI president. “We’re excited to continue with the initiatives and strategies we’ve developed over the last 18 months.”

The second bullet should read “A safe, efficient, resilient and sustainable infrastructure.” Sustainability and resilience are not the same, and sustainability does not include resilience. I believe that ASCE members have a huge role in defining the kind of resilient built environment needed to protect our communities. Perhaps, the leading role.

As a retired CE/SE and Life ASCE member, I read the goals with interest. Unfortunately, absent further discourse on them, they impress me as being another version of motherhood and apple pie. I suspect that in some other words, all of the goals have been adopted previously and that real progress on them will be difficult to discern. Then we can start over with another study group and repeat the process.

What matters most for ASCE and Board Members should be the fact that all the countries of the world face a future of accelerating sea level rise. The working list of six goals all take on meaning when linked to this critical topic with more flooding impacting all coastal cities in the near future. Can you think of a more important topic?
Best regards,
Dave Basco